Friday, October 16, 2015

How Class Works - 2016 Conference

The Center for Study
of Working Class Life is pleased to announce the How Class Works – 2016 Conference,
to be held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, June 9-11, 2016.

Proposals for papers, presentations, and sessions are
welcome until December 9, 2015, according to the guidelines below. For
more information, visit our Web site at <www.stonybrook.edu/workingclass>.

Purpose and
orientation: This conference explores ways in which an explicit
recognition of class helps to understand the social world in which we live, and
the variety of ways in which analysis of societies can deepen our understanding
of class as a social relationship across the globe. Theoretical and
historical presentations should take as their point of reference the lived
experience of class in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, within nations
and internationally. Presentations are welcome from people outside
academic life when they sum up and reflect upon social experience in ways that
contribute to conference themes and discussion. Formal papers are welcome
but are not required. All presentations should be accessible to an
interdisciplinary audience.

Conference themes: The
conference welcomes proposals for sessions and presentations that advance our
understanding of any of the following themes:

* The mosaic of class,
race, and gender: To explore how class shapes racial, gender, and ethnic
experience, and how different racial, gender, and ethnic experiences within
various classes shape the meaning of class.

* Class,
power, and social structure: To explore how the social lives of working,
middle, and capitalist classes are structured by various forms of power; to
explore ways in which class dynamics shape power structures in workplaces and
across broader societies.

* Class in
an age of income inequality: To explore the implications and
consequences of the growing income gap between top earners and the rest for the
lived experience in class in different corners of the world.

* Class,
Community, and the Environment: To explore ways in which class informs communities
and environmental conditions where people work as well as where they live; also
to consider questions of "home," community formation and sustenance,
and environmental justice.

* Class in
a global economy: To explore how class identity and class dynamics are
influenced by globalization, including the transnational movements of industry,
capital, and capitalist elites; the experience of cross-border labor migration
and organizing; and international labor and environmental standards.

* Middle
class? Working class? What's the difference and why does it matter? To
explore the claim that the U.S. and other developed nations have become middle
class societies, contrasting with the notion that the working class is the
majority; to unpack the relationships between the middle class and capitalist,
working and other subordinate classes both in the developed and the developing
world.

* Class,
public policy, and electoral politics: To explore how class affects
public deliberations and policy in a variety of nations around the world, with
special attention to health care, the criminal justice system, labor law,
poverty, tax and other economic policy, housing, and education; to explore the
place of electoral politics in the arrangement of class forces on policy
matters.

* Class and
culture: To explore ways in which cultures and subcultures transmit,
sustain, and transform class dynamics around the world.

* Pedagogy
of class: To explore techniques and materials useful for teaching
about class, at K-12 levels, in college and university courses, and in labor
studies and adult education courses.

How to submit proposals for How Class Works – 2016 Conference: We encourage
proposals for panel sessions (three or four papers) and roundtables that bring
diverse perspectives and experiences into dialogue: scholars with activists;
those working on similar themes in different disciplines; as well as those
working on similar issues in different parts of the world. Proposals for
individual presentations are also welcome. Proposals for presentations
must include the following information [for session proposals this
information must be included for all proposed presentations, as well as
indication of presenters' willingness to participate]: a) short descriptive
title; b) which of the conference themes will be addressed; c) a maximum 250
word summary of the main subject matter, points, and methodology; d) relevant
personal information indicating institutional affiliation (if an y) and what
training or experience the presenter brings to the proposal; e) presenter's
name, address, telephone, fax, and e-mail address. A person may present in at
most two conference sessions. To allow time for discussion, sessions will be
limited to three twenty-minute or four fifteen-minute principal presentations.
Sessions will not include official discussants.

Submit proposals as an e-mail attachment to michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu or
as hard copy by mail to: The How Class Works – 2016 Conference, Center for
Study of Working Class Life, Department of Economics, SUNY, Stony Brook, NY
11794-4384.

Timetable: Proposals
must be received by December 9, 2015.
After review by the program committee, notifications will be mailed by the end
of January 2016. The conference will be at SUNY Stony Brook June 9-11,
2016. Conference registration and housing reservations will be possible
after March 7, 2016.

About Me

I am a Visiting Fellow in the College of Social Science at the University of Lincoln. I was previously a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Education at Anglia Ruskin University (2014-15). Prior to that, I was previously a Senior Lecturer in Education Studies at the University of Northampton. My interests are in Marxist educational theory, the future of the human and social time. The Rikowski family web site, The Flow of Ideas can be found at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk,
My Wordpress blog, 'All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski' is at: http://rikowski.wordpress.com,
Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski